BHAGWAN DAS Vs. STATE OF CHHATTISGARH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) BY this petition, the petitioner has sought issuance of direction to respondents to perform their duty by registering FIR in the matter of allegation of murder of petitioner's son-Jai Kumar and for proper investigation. The petitioner has further prayed for direction to respondents to depute the Senior Police Officer to investigate the matter. Further prayer has been made that respondents No.2 may be directed to initiate inquiry against respondent No.3, as respondent No.3 did not perform his duty of registering offence on the report of the petitioner.

(2.) THE case of the petitioner is that on 12/3/06, some persons of the area named Yogesh @ Yogi and Keshav Sahu misbehaved and abused his son-Jai Kumar followed by assault on the next day, i.e. on 13/3/06. When his son Jai Kumar reported the matter to respondent No.3, respondent No.3 submitted a report under Section 151 CrPC before the Magistrate. After arrest, Jai Kumar was released on giving personal bond whereas the other party Yogesh @ Yogi was released on the next day. It is said that Gappu Tiwari, Mahesh Markande, Suresh, Sunil Francis and Satish were friends of Yogesh and they all are hard- core criminals and were arrested in murder case and number of criminal cases are pending against them. Further case of the petitioner is that on 15/3/06, deceased-Jai Kumar was called by Gappu Tiwari, Mahesh Markande, Suresh, Sunil and Satish from his house and he was taken by them to railway platform, W.R.S. Raipur where Jai Kumar was assaulted and when he became unconscious, the petitioner was intimated and thereafter, Jai Kumar was admitted in the hospital, where he died. Further case is that merg intimation was recorded by the police of Police Station-Khamtarai that petitioner's son-Jai Kumar met train accident. Post Mortem was conducted and the Post Mortem report shows that cause of death is due to shock and hemorrhage as a result of multiple injury. According to the petitioner, a written complaint was submitted to respondent No.2 and 3. It is the case of the petitioner that even though he had submitted a written complaint alleging that his son was murdered which clearly shows a cognizable offence, no offence was registered. Learned counsel for the petitioner argued that the petitioner is the father of the deceased-Jai Kumar who submitted complaint in writing to the Station House Officer of Police Station-Khamtarai and when no action was taken, he made representations to various authorities which included Superintendent of Police also. Learned counsel argued that once report discloses commission of cognizable offence, the concerned police officer was under statutory obligation to register criminal case and investigate the matter and then submit the result of investigation in the form of report under Section 173 CrPC before the jurisdictional Magistrate. Learned counsel for the petitioner relied upon the decision of the Supreme Court in the case of Ramesh Kumari v. State (N.C.T. of Delhi) and others reported in AIR 2006 Supreme Court 1322 and Lalita Kumari v. Government of Uttar Pradesh and others, 2008 (7) SCC 164. He also relied upon the judgment in the case of Mohindro v. State of Punjab and others, 2001 (II) SLT 666.

(3.) FURTHER, Supreme Court has laid down the guidelines with regard to the course of action to be adopted, particularly regarding entertaining such grievance by this Court as below :- "(25.) We have elaborated on the above matter because we often find that when someone has a grievance that his FIR has not been registered at the police station and / or a proper investigation is not being done by the police, he rushes to the High Court to file a writ petition or a petition under Section 482, CrPC. We are of the opinion that the High Court should not encourage this practice and should ordinarily refuse to interfere in such matters, and relegate the petitioner to his alternating remedy, firstly under Section 154 (3) and Section 36, CrPC before the concerned police officers, and if that is of no avail, by approaching the concerned Magistrate under Section 156 (3)."